CALVERT COUNTY. 



Calvert, the smallest County in the State, is one of the group of 

 southern Maryland Counties lying between the Chesapeake Bay on 

 the east and the Patuxeut River on the west. The County's chief 

 topographic feature is a ridge which extends from north to south, of 

 which the greatest elevation is 200 feet, from that sloping down to the 

 Patuxent on one side and Chesapeake Bay on the other. The greater 

 part of the drainage is westward to the Patuxent River, which is navi- 

 gable along the County's entire border. The local soil is for the most 

 part light, sandy loam, though ranging from pure sand along the 

 shore line to a clay loam in the east-central part. 



■ The Forests. 



The County's present wogded area amounts to 45 per cent, and 

 since this region has been settled for longer than 250 years the pres- 

 ent line of demarkation between forest and farm has become clearly 

 defined. Of the three classes of forest shown on the map — hardwood, 

 pine, and mixed hardwood and pine — ^there are certain sub-divisions 

 growing out of the many variations of topography and soil. At pres- 

 ent the forests which comprise nearly half the land area are rather 

 uniformly distributed along the streams and ravines, where they fol- 

 low the drainage contours closely. The light soil is subject to erosion 

 wherever steep slopes occur, and consequently experience has shown 

 that such lands are best retained in forest. As these slopes and 

 stream beds constitute a large percentage of the total area, it is likely 

 that nearly all of the present forested areas will be continued in 

 forest. Indeed, for the past forty years, more land, once deforested, 

 has been allowed to naturally revert to pine than has been newly 

 cleared during that period. The Patuxent River side of the County 

 has the larger percentage of cleared land, the amount of woodland 

 also decreasing in going from the southern end of the County toward 

 the north. 



The forest survey made in 1909 showed that of the wooded area 76 

 per cent is hardwood forest, 17 per cent pine, and the remainder, 7 

 per cent, mixed pine and hardwood. In the mixed hardwood, 8,251 

 acres support stands of 5,000 board feet or over to the acre, and 39,- 

 489 acres of less than this ; 40 acres contain stands of pine and cypress 



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